Whatever's biting you this
morning, brush it aside and defiantly state "LEAVE ME
ALONE! *I* have to make my own caption"! Have at it, ladies
and gents:
You Tell Me
From John Good for Left
in Aboite
It's Time to Flog Our
"Government"
From Len Hart for BlueBloggin
and The
Existentialist Cowboy
The
fall of the dollar means that Americans will pay more for almost
everything. The “correction” had been overdue since the US became a
debtor nation, a process completed under Ronald Reagan. It was on
September 16, 1985, that the Commerce Department announced that the United
States had become a debtor nation and it was on that day that the American
Empire died. Since that date, the GOP has been content to let consumers
suck up the trade deficit with fewer real jobs. The GOP got away with it
as long as China propped up the buck in order to fill the shelves at
Walmart. An emerging stronger Euro changed everything.
The collapse of the dollar might not have mattered as much if the US had not over many years of incompetent GOP missrule and corruption become a net debtor nation. US consumers are utterly dependent upon “cheap” merchandise from abroad; a falling dollar is catastrophic.
So far, CNN and the US media seem to be treating this like a novelty story, a “kicker” at the end of the real news. Like the Democrats who thought they could “play” Bush’s game and win, they just don’t get it. The average American may not “get it” but he will most surely pay for it.
Like almost every stupid thing that has happened to the US since World War II, the GOP is mostly to blame. But Democrats should be flogged for letting them get away with it.
But Iraq has changed all that.Bush is primarily to blame for having bankrupted the US by way of vainglorious and fraudulent adventures in Iraq. Though Democrats were, at one time, villified as “big spending liberals”, it is the GOP that has run up the highest debts and deficits. The world might have tolerated our many follies as long as they could pass along those bucks received for the goods sold the US. Alas, it was all, literally, a “confidence” game, in which all the world has lost confidence.
War is a racket fought by the masses for privileged elites, big corporations, and venal politicians like Bush. Bush’s quagmire is fought for the benefit of no-bid contractors like Halliburton and Blackwater and financed by America’s working poor and middle classes who pay for the war —with their lives abroad and with their jobs, their retirement prospects, and their access to health care at home. Bush’s base —the nation’s elite, his corporate sponsors, and the so-called defense industry —have paid nothing, risked nothing! Rather —they feed at the trough. The upper one percent of the population has gotten several tax cuts while the big oil companies report record profits rising concurrently with higher prices at the pump.
- Just two days after 9/11, I learned from Congressional staffers that Republicans on Capitol Hill were already exploiting the atrocity, trying to use it to push through tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. … We now know that from the very beginning, the Bush administration and its allies in Congress saw the terrorist threat not as a problem to be solved, but as a political opportunity to be exploited. The story of the latest terror plot makes the administration’s fecklessness and cynicism on terrorism clearer than ever.
Hoping for Fear, by Paul Krugman, Using Fear Commentary, NY Times
There are big profits in the death business. Go to Texas and ask the CEO at DynCorp.
- The war in Iraq has boosted DynCorp’s revenues, responsible for about $400 million of the company’s nearly $2 billion in sales. And while the company didn’t specify how much the effort has added to profits, there has certainly been an upside, Lagana said, although he added that profit margins are lower than in other private industry — often below 10 percent.
- For government contractors and other US-based businesses that are doing work in Iraq, the war there has continued to provide opportunity and benefits, although experts and companies alike say they are difficult to quantify. To be sure, security businesses, oil producers and defense contractors are among the biggest winners. Those who manufacture key products, from bulletproof vests to bullets themselves, and, more recently, those involved in reconstruction, have reaped the benefits, too.
Money is not the soiled and over-designed scraps of paper that we carry around and pass off in exchange for “things”. Money is, at last, mere faith. China, especially, had “faith” that their confidence in the almighty buck would be repaid by US willingness to buy all sorts of cheap Chinese crap at Wal-Mart and other blights on the American urban landscape. The Chinese would get it all back as long as the rest of the world was willing to wink and nod.
The result is that Shanghai and other cities have out-Americaed, America. They have taller and uglier buildings and worse traffic amid the worst air pollution on the planet. Houston and LA look green by comparison. China is a ecological blight on the planet. The lesson one hopes China has learned is that there is price to be paid for having partnered with Satan.
Wal-Mart makes a killing putting people out of work, depressing local economies, and lowering wages but it is globalization –an unholy alliance with GOP “trickle down” policies –that spawned Wal-Mart and sounded a death knell for the futures of American workers. Most recently, Wal-Mart’s Chinese imports have displaced nearly 200,000 US jobs
- China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) was supposed to improve the US trade deficit with China and create good jobs in the United States. But those promises have gone unfulfilled: the total US trade deficit with China reached $235 billion in 2006. Between 2001 and 2006, this growing deficit eliminated 1.8 million US jobs (Scott 2007). The world’s biggest retailer, US-based Wal-Mart was responsible for $27 billion in US imports from China in 2006 and 11% of the growth of the total US trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2006. Wal-Mart’s trade deficit with China alone eliminated nearly 200,000 US jobs in this period.
Robert E. Scott, The Wal-Mart effect
The Wal-Mart effect on US workers and manufacturing is typified by the effects seen in clothing –low-cost goods with a hidden higher price: lower wages, lost jobs. Underlying every sector, however, are unsupportable US trade deficits which benefit American consumers but only so long as they have jobs themselves.
As has been the trend at least since the regime of Ronald Reagan, manufacturing suffers most as Wal-Mart grows more intrusive, exploiting the trade deficit with its own undervalued currency. In effect, American consumers have financed China’s economic boom.
Of some 133,000 manufacturing jobs lost in the US, sixty-eight percent were the direct result of Wal-Mart’s “partnership” with China. The effect is devastating to US workers and the US economy overall. Manufacturing jobs, after all, have generally paid higher wages and provided better benefits.
The US-China trade deficits amount to more than $1 trillion in US Treasury bills and growing. It is fair to say that China has done this deliberately to rehabilitate its own economy on US backs. It has had the effect of lowering the cost of its exports to the United States and other countries.
- The relationship between the dollar and the yen has been affected primarily by the adverse trade balance that we have with Japan. At the last summit meeting in London, for instance, we discussed the very high positive trade balance that Japan enjoyed then. The goal established by your own leaders was that this trade balance would be reduced. Instead, it’s continued to go up.
- I think, as the economic market leaders have recognized, the high export of Japanese goods and the relatively low imports into Japan of other goods, the yen has strengthened in comparison to other currencies, including, of course, the American dollar.
President Jimmy Carter, Interview with Western European and Japanese Reporters, July 11th, 1978
What a foolhardy game of brinkmanship this has become! It is tempting to write that China has more to lose by a collapsing buck than does the US. Certainly Bush concluded thus as he parked the US Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf, where it is tracked undetected by Chinese subs.
Money is whatever people will accept as payment for goods and services. As long as the rest of the world was confident that they could pass along their bucks or exchange them equitably, the US was not overly concerned about “fundamentals”.
I am now told in Europe that the strength of the dollar abroad is inexorably linked to Bush’s credibility abroad. We are, therefore, screwed. Bush has no credibility. And most Americans don’t have the luxury of demanding that they be paid in some other currency.
Outraged
FromMauigirl for Mauigirl's
Meanderings
I'd
like to think that if only I didn't have to work, keep house (as
little as possible but still, laundry has to be done and dishes have
to be washed occasionally), and generally live life, that I might
actually go out and do something constructive. Like join Greenpeace
and get out there on the ocean.
I read today that the Japanese
are going out and hunting the endangered humpback whales. The
humpback whales that we've seen cavorting in the sheltered waters
between Maui and Lanai when visiting Hawaii. The ones that came up
by our boat and leaped in the water nearby.
Supposedly it is for "scientific" purposes but we all know
they're going to eat the meat. This makes me so angry I feel as if I
could personally go sink a Japanese whaling boat. Just give me a
torpedo.
Luckily, Greenpeace is out there disrupting the hunt. And since I
can't go sink a boat personally, I guess I'll need to send a
donation to Greenpeace for standing up for the whales. But I still
feel sick inside thinking about the whales the Japanese will
probably kill despite Greenpeace's best efforts.
According to The
New York Times, the Japan Whaling Association claimed:
“Asking Japan to abandon this
part of its culture,” the association says, “would compare to
Australians being asked to stop eating meat pies, Americans being
asked to stop eating hamburgers and the English being asked to go
without fish and chips.”
First of all, if these whales are being killed for "scientific
purposes," why compare them to meat pies? Obviously something
else is going on here.
And if killing humpbacks is so important to the Japanese culture,
why, then, did they forego this essential part of their
"culture" for 20 years? True, they've been killing other
types of whales, but not the humpback. What made them suddenly
decide that humpback whales are now fair game? I think it's because
they think nobody's paying attention.
Let's hope Greenpeace
and other environmental groups make sure they know someone IS paying
attention. Please visit their website and see what you can do to
help.
(Photo credit to National
Geographic.)
Seattle
Crushes the FCC
From Station
Agent for Ice
Station Tango
Bill Moyers covers a wild, nine and a half
hour public hearing on media consolidation held
by the FCC on five days notice in Seattle a
couple weeks ago. Look at these citizens
hammering the FCC. Outstanding work.
This Is A Lie
- The Fix Is In: Iraq Puppets Ask For Domination
From Rick B
for Ten
Percent
Hypocracy spreads, as previously posted first they deny the parliament the right to vote because they would vote out the US/Coalition (ha!)-
when the only people who all those purple-fingered Iraqi voters actually elected to office try to attach some conditions to the U.N. mandate, demand a timetable for withdrawal or come out against privatizing Iraq’s natural resources, then somehow the legislature magically disappears
Read full post here.
Now today this utter capitulation to imperial exploitation-
Iraq’s government is preparing to grant the US a long-term troop presence in the country and preferential treatment for American investors in return for guaranteed security, it emerged today.
By disappearing previous legislation attempts the US/UK have forced the only negotiations over the UN mandate into a corner where the Iraq govt. shills must hand over their country to a genocidal shock doctrine takeover by US & other multinationals.
Preferential treatment for US investors could provide a huge windfall if Iraq can achieve enough stability to exploit its vast oil resources.
Christopher Pang, the head of the Middle East programme at the Royal United Services Institute, said the proposals were continuing the “pattern since 2003″. “That US troops will stay in Iraq is a fait accompli. They have just built their largest embassy there,” he said.
But promises of long-term troop deployments were “jumping the gun”, Pang said, because a president coming to power after US elections next year could change policy.
Would a Democrat president end this murderous occupation and thus endanger all that oil they need for the huge dirty and inefficient US energy economy? I wouldn’t hold you breath. In return for fewer above the law death squads the Iraqis get some internal control back but tens of thousands of US troops and permanent bases remain and the assets are given preferentially to US investors. Utterly repulsive, immoral, an illegal invasion rubber stamped into a long term resource grab by the Empire. Shame on anyone, anyone who goes along with this in America.
Dennis
Kucinich - The One We Really Want
From
Storm Bear for The
Bilerico Project
Most folks I know have a
preferred candidate -
Hillary Clinton, Barack
Obama, John Edwards or Al
Gore. But the crazy thing
is, they will turn right
around and say, “You
know who I really want to
vote for? Kucinich.”
I have those same feelings - I love Dennis Kucinich and think he would make the best President. His values most closely resemble my own. Why not vote for him?
Irrational fear. Total fear that the Republicans will lie about Kucinich and Fred Thompson will win the election. Wait, the GOP is gonna lie anyway, no matter what, so why the fear?
One thing I finally noticed about Kucinich during the AFL-CIO debate was how Kucinich always made more points during his alloted time than other candidates. I have been thinking about this and found the answer when I was reading the transcript. Kucinich doesn’t equivocate. He doesn’t dance around an issue - he goes straight for the explanation and since his past is not littered with idiotic support of bad bills, he has nothing to fear, so why do I?
Yes, why do I fear? Do I think Hillary can win? No. I think she loses the election the second she is nominated. Isn’t that something to fear? Do we think Fred Thompson, Romeny or whatever other ass-wipe the GOP nominates will give a shit about universal healthcare, the environment or peace? Nope, it will be a straight continuation of 8 years of BushCo. Isn’t my fear displaced?
Going back and watching Kucinich in earlier debates via YouTube, one thing I noticed was how he usually said thank you for the question and was always very polite but firm and stern in his beliefs.
When talking about Kucinich, I hear two distinct voices responding, “Thank God people are starting to get Kucinich!” and the other is “He can’t win.” Well, neither can Hillary, but that doesn’t stop people from supporting her and dumping stink-loads of cash in her bank account. She is the only Democratic candidate that will motivate conservatives to come to the polls and vote against her. Obama and Edwards don’t fuel that level of hatred. And in America, that is saying a lot about Obama. At least America is maturing on one issue.
There was one other minority position, but it was the most disturbing. Paraphrasing here, “We tried voting our beliefs with McGovern and you saw where that got us!” Friends, the Republicans always vote their beliefs and they are more successful than the Democrats. Why must progressives lower their standards? The Republicans don’t. Since I have been voting, conservatives got two terms for Reagan, one for Bush Senior and two for Bush Junior - the latter being the worst president in American history.
The fact isn’t the Dems fail because they vote their beliefs, the Dems fail because that can’t articulate what they believe in. Jesse Helms was bat-shit crazy but he constantly won and he had no problem articulating his beliefs.
Well, this is true to a point. Dennis Kucinich always speaks his mind, directly to the point with nary a waiver. You know where he stands.
The Kucinich critics to have their work cut out for them because they need to go back thirty years to find something to complain about. Their soundbite is “he drove Cleveland into bankruptcy.” This, it turns out, is a lie. It is a Halliburton straw man with a touch of Sopranos-level intrigue.
Dennis Kucinich started out as the mayor of Cleveland in 1977 - the youngest mayor of a large city in America. The city was hip deep in trouble with its finances and crime. When Kucinich was sworn in, Cleveland was in one of its worst snow storms with winds of over 100 miles per hour - a sign of things to come.
He made good appointments and bad appointments for his administration and one of those, the Chief of Police, Richard Hongisto, proved to be real bad. The fiasco went so terribly wrong that a recall election was called and Kucinich won - maintaining control of the failing city.
One of his campaign promises was not to sell Cleveland’s public electricity utility, Cleveland Public Power to Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company - a corrupt company with a stack of federal violations of anti-trust laws held against it. When Kucinich got in office, the mafia figured out that this young Mayor was actually going to keep his word and not sell Cleveland Public Power to Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company so the mafia put a hit out for the murder of Kucinich. Yep, Dennis Kucinich was the target of mafioso assassins, but that was nothing compared to the extreme pressure of the city council and local banks had placed on Kucinich to sell the utility. In the end, Kucinich still said "no."
How many times have we wished for that tenacity in our politicians when dealing with Halliburton?
The main city creditor, Cleveland Trust, ignored all of Kucinich’s debt restructuring plans and placed the city in default of payment. Here is the kicker - the bank’s board had seven members who were on the payroll of Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company and they were also on that company’s board. The collusion was right out of the Cheney Play Book. The bank was a major shareholder in CEI and thus the sale of the city’s municipal light utility would have benefited the bank, not the citizens of Cleveland.
And, again, Kucinich stood his ground. He put the decision to the people, vote to sell to CEI or vote for a .5% tax increase. Cleveland voted for higher taxes. Corporate interests lost and remarkably, the mafia recalled the assassin.
Cleveland never went into bankruptcy and the loan was paid and would have been paid if CEI and Cleveland Trust weren’t involved in a conspiracy to rob the citizens of Cleveland of almost a third of a billion dollars in 1970’s money.
CEI was later
acquired by FirstEnergy,
the company responsible
for the 2003 blackout.
Cleveland Public Power
is still cranking out
the watts to the city of
Cleveland. Cleveland
Trust is now Key Bank.
So that is the story,
Kucinich is guilty of
not bowing to Big Energy
and ignoring the
deployment of assassins
just to keep a campaign
promise.
Here is my question: which of the “leading candidates” in this race - Clinton, Obama or Edwards - would have withstood that kind of pressure?
But where is Kucinich on the issues? I have heard a lot of talk from the candidates stating “any Democrat running for President will be better than Bush.” I believe that sentiment to be true. But I also believe there are varying degrees of how much better they will be than Bush. Over the past few months, there are claims that the changes we (the people) want to make to this country “can’t be done. The shift is too fast, these things will take time to change.” Oh, I hope not.
We have 50 million people in this nation without health care. The rest of us have health insurance that is precarious. My wife just got a letter from our policy holder, Blue Cross, asking whether her recent yearly physical was the result of a work related injury - she has been out of the workforce for over ten years, yet we had to go through the damn motions with these chuckle-heads to get the claim paid. If it was something serious like cancer, I can’t imagine the red tape that would get thrown at our face.
With Americans daily needing health care that either allows them to live or die, this is not a problem we can gradually ease our way out of. We need swift, decisive legislation and leadership to get us out of this mess. Kucinich is the lone candidate that has universal health care for all as part of his platform - everyone else is offering “insurance.” I have had enough of insurance. Haven’t you?
Our jobs are being sucked out of this country at an alarming rate. A very alarming rate. When I was growing up in the real town of Dobson, NC, the town of 1,200 people was teeming with textile mills. They were everywhere. Even the gas station across from the court house had rented out one of the car repair bays to a guy who was making socks day and night.
Jobs were plentiful, parents could send their kids to UNC or NC State and there was enough money to retire at 60. Those were the horrible days of the Carter Administration in 1980. When Reagan got into office, the borders began to open for business and the jobs from my hometown were siphoned off and weren’t replaced with new jobs.
Now, the number one industry in North Carolina is logging. People in that Congressional District (NC-05) have had to go through “skill retraining” several times since then. You simply can’t have a single career anymore in rural America. Hell, you can’t even keep the same employer for more than four years - right about when you would receive matching funds for your 401K you find yourself out of work.
Twenty-seven years later, our economic base, the middle class, has been pushed off a cliff and we are tumbling toward a very nasty end. Our open border policies need to be clamped shut and not over the span of three decades. We need to exit NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT and the WTO today, now, 10 minutes ago. Which candidate has this as a policy? Take a guess. Kucinich. And oddly enough, this actually makes him appealing to conservatives.
This brings us to the mother-f@cking war. BushCo has his hand out to Congress every few months to add to the whopping $1,600,000,000,000.00 already spent on the war. Hillary wants to keep troops there and Obama wants to take our time getting out of Iraq. Biden wants to split Iraq into three pieces and keep troops there (that means we will be fighting a six front civil war). No thanks. We need out and we need out now.
Kucinich is the only one willing to state the obvious - the war was a failure and we need to get out. He was the only one in the race not snookered into voting for the damn thing to begin with. Hillary was for the war up until six months before the 2006 election. If it took her that long to figure out the war was an idiotic idea, then for me, she doesn’t have the mental capabilities to get this nation out of the cesspool of despair we are in.
If you look at Kucinich’s voting record and his anthology of submitted legislation over the past 10 years, they read as if written by someone with prescient abilities. I am not saying he is a soothsayer or a prophet from Ohio, I am saying he is one smart guy and we need more of people like him in Congress, not less.
Our nation is in serious trouble and we have long since passed the point where half-measures would make any difference. Unless we get a President that is willing to actually take Honest-To-God bold steps, we may be seeing the last days of Jefferson’s America.
Hillary, Obama and Edwards would be an improvement to what we currently have in the White House, but their histories show they are ill-equipped to handle the challenges ahead of us. Only Dennis Kucinich has risked ridicule and even his political career to do the right thing. His political past has been nothing but a series of career-ending decisions, but every decision has been for the benefit for the citizens, never corporate interests. That is why he keeps getting re-elected.
You have never seen Kucinich giving Masonic-level secret handshakes under the bathroom stall. You will never hear Kucinich say, “I spread my legs when I pull my pants down.” He will never say it to a vice cop nor will he say it to a lobbyist. Kucinich has put everything on the line, and I do mean everything, for "We the People." He did so as mayor when he protected the assets of the people of Cleveland and he does it every day with his seat in Congress.
If we, as progressives, keep voting for the person we think can win, we are abject and total failures as citizens. We are betraying everything Paine, Jefferson and Henry stood for - honesty, equality and freedom. Those three Americans had a vision for America that has yet to be fully realized. During the Bush Administration, we have taken many, many steps backwards from this vision. Under previous administrations, we took small, baby-steps forward. Lincoln did, however, suffer through a gusher of forward movements, but the rest of American History is littered with small steps forward, until now.
The other candidates in the field I believe will be better than Bush, way better, but I don’t see anything in their policy speeches, voting records or position papers that illustrate a path to move us back to where we should be in 2009 after Clinton/Gore dropped us off in 2001. Most of the candidates only have plans on repairing barely half of the damage Bush has done… with the exception of Kucinich. His record, plans and policies all reflect quantum leaps in government, bringing us to a position of being able to manufacture goods in this nation again. Allowing us to feed our families, educate our kids and stay healthy.
Baby steps - do you really think they will do any good? Do you think they will even bring us back to where we were in 1992? This nation is totally unrecognizable to me - the United States is at the bottom of the list in damn near anything. We had a better literacy rate in 1877 when Laura Ingalls Wilder was living in a little house on the prairie. Hell, my grandmother took Latin in 5th grade as a requirement back in the early 1900’s and that was public school in West Virginia! And Obama’s baby-steps are supposed to be some foundational culture shift for the American future? I don’t think so. He got the beat down when he just mentioned talking with rogue states might be a good idea - then he backtracked like Louis and Clark.
Oh yeah, that must be that spine we hear so much about.
I’ll take Ultra-K any day.
Doin' the Vatican Rag
From Mary Ellen for The
Divine Democrat
There's a new boss in town and he's just carried out a hit on the
director of the Sistine Chapel. Yes, Pope Ratzinger has made another
move to drag the Catholic Church back to the 17th century. Pope
Benedict has restored the primary form of singing, the Gregorian
chant, for Mass and solemn Vespers in St.Peter's basilica.
Now, some are saying that this isn't going to effect the music in
Catholic churches around the world, but from what I can see, by his
past behavior, he wants to do everything he can to put a stop to the
advances made by previous popes and turn the church around to it's
previous, archaic practices.
Pope Benedict XVI has never been a fan of those folksy guitar Masses.
Unlike his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict prefers to
hide behind the walls of the Vatican and keep a distance from his
flock, especially teens and young adults. Take for example an incident
back in 1997 when JPII was planning to appear with singer, Bob Dylan
at a concert. Then-Cardinal Ratzinger was so appalled by this decision
that he tried to put a stop to it. John Paul II wouldn't hear of it
and happily appeared among the large crowds of young people.
Bob Dylan sang Knockin' on Heaven's Door and A Hard Rain's A-Gonna
Fall, his antiwar classic, with Forever Young as an encore. John Paul
II was enjoying every bit of it and showed his familiarity with the
singers music by added a reference to Dylan's song, "Blowin' in
the Wind", in his homily. "You say the answer is blowing in
the wind, my friend," he said. "So it is: but it is not the
wind that blows things away, it is the breath and life of the Holy
Spirit, the voice that calls and says, Come!"
Pope John Paul II then added, "You ask me how many roads a man
must walk down before he becomes a man. I answer: there is only one
road for man, and it is the road of Jesus Christ, who said, 'I am the
Way and the Life'."
Pope Benedict had recently said, regarding this incident, that
"There was reason to be skeptical, and I was." He also
added, "Indeed, in a certain sense I still am today." He
also claimed that the singers at the 1977 concert "had a
completely different message from the one which the Pope had".
So, is this the end of the world for the Catholic Church? I doubt it,
we've had worse
Popes in the past and we're still going strong. But as far as any
hopes that the Church will move forward and change the rules of
celibacy for priests, or..heaven forbid, allow a woman to become a
priest, it ain't gonna happen. Instead, our new Pope with old ideas
has also decided to bring back the Latin Mass, with the hope of
pleasing the "traditionalists" of the Roman Catholic Church.
Many Catholics went into a frenzy with that one, but for now, it isn't
a requirement for all Masses, but the pastors must allow a Latin Mass
if it is requested by their parishioners.
I do draw the line in one area, however. I'm not wearing one of those
stupid doilies on my head when I go into church. If God wanted my head
covered, I would have been born with a babushka.
Ann Coulter Feels the Love
From Christopher for From
the Left
Annthrax Coulter can dish it out but she can’t take it.
The conservative bloviator is nationally recognized for dishing out psychotic attacks againt Democrats but recently, Coulter has been unnerved by invective she received at her Palm Beach home. So much so that she got the county property appraiser to remove her name from public records identifying where she lives.
Before anyone decides she’s worthy of empathy, let’s review. Coulter, 45, has called Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards a ”faggot” and said she wished he would be killed by terrorists. She once said President Clinton ”could be a lunatic” and described a group of widows of men killed in the World Trade Center as “witches and harpies” and said she had “never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much.”
So it come as no surprise when:
• In March, somebody delivered a greeting card to her home in
March with this salutation: “You self-aggrandizing sociopath! The
only thing left after a nuclear war are you and cockroaches.”
• In June 2006, Coulter received several nonthreatening but
antagonistic phone messages from an Alameda, Calif., man whom she did
not know. ”Hey, Ann, now that you’ve moved to Florida and you’re
in your 40s, did you know that you can join the Florida National
Guard?” the man, later identified as Brian Hatoff, 58, said in one
message. “Oh, I forgot, you and your rotund buddy down the street
[an apparent allusion to radio commentator Rush Limbaugh] and the vice
president, you’re all registered chicken hawks. You love war until
you have to put your own ass on the line. I don’t call that
patriotism. I call it cowardice.”
• The evening of March 25 she heard somebody screaming from a
vacant lot next door: “Ann Coulter is a big [expletive].”
• A few days later, she had checked her mailbox and found an
apparently hand-delivered pink and white envelope inside. It read,
”Ann Coulter” with an arrow drawn through it. On the greeting
card inside was written: “Go [expletive] yourself.”
Her house is one of 2,674 properties in Palm Beach County whose owners are confidential in property appraiser records. Homeowners must complete an affidavit stating why they should be exempt from the state’s public records law.
While Annthrax Coulter professes to be a Christian, there’s one Bible adage she obviously failed to learn: “You reap what you sow.” - Galatians 6:7-9
DUI Stop
From Mary for Get
Your Own
Got this in the email today and had to share.
Trent Lott to resign his seat ...
From Dusty for It's
My Right to Be Left of the Center
There are quite a few news
outlets that are reporting
Trent Lott will resign his
seat today. Politico and Think
Progress
are two that have stated it
so far via emails I rec'd
from both of them. From the
ThinkProgress writeup:
Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) is reportedly informing close allies that he plans to resign his Senate seat before the end of the year. NBC reports, "It's possible a formal announcement of his plans could take place as early as today." Politico adds, "If he resigns, Lott would become the sixth Republican senator to announce they were stepping down this election cycle."
Lott's term expires in 2012, therefore a resignation would trigger a special election for a replacement to serve the remainder of his term.
UPDATE IV: "While the exact reason Lott is stepping down before he finishes his term is unknown, the general speculation is that a quick departure immunizes Lott against tougher restrictions in a new lobbying law that takes effect at the end of the year. That law would require Senators to wait two-years before entering the lucrative world of lobbying Congress."
Its all about the money isn't it? Getting a high-paying job for one of the huge corporations he has already worked for..you know..instead of the people that voted for him? Greed..what a concept!
Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) is reportedly informing close allies that he plans to resign his Senate seat before the end of the year. NBC reports, "It's possible a formal announcement of his plans could take place as early as today." Politico adds, "If he resigns, Lott would become the sixth Republican senator to announce they were stepping down this election cycle."
Lott's term expires in 2012, therefore a resignation would trigger a special election for a replacement to serve the remainder of his term.
UPDATE IV: "While the exact reason Lott is stepping down before he finishes his term is unknown, the general speculation is that a quick departure immunizes Lott against tougher restrictions in a new lobbying law that takes effect at the end of the year. That law would require Senators to wait two-years before entering the lucrative world of lobbying Congress."
Its all about the money isn't it? Getting a high-paying job for one of the huge corporations he has already worked for..you know..instead of the people that voted for him? Greed..what a concept!
GOP
Enlists Rich Candidates
From
TomCat for Politics
Plus
WASHINGTON,
Nov.
25
—
Confronting
an
enormous
fund-raising
gap
with
Democrats,
Republican
Party
officials
are
aggressively
recruiting
wealthy
candidates
who
can
spend
large
sums
of
their
own
money
to
finance
their
Congressional
races,
party
officials
say.
At this point, strategists for the National Republican Congressional Committee have enlisted wealthy candidates to run in at least a dozen competitive Congressional districts nationwide, particularly those where Democrats are finishing their first term and are thus considered most vulnerable. They say more are on the way.
These wealthy Republicans have each already invested $100,000 to $1 million of their own money to finance their campaigns, according to campaign finance disclosure reports and interviews with party strategists. Experts say that is a large amount for this early in the cycle...
Inserted from <NY Times>
It's a sad state of affairs in GOPerville when the super-r4ich actually have to represent themselves instead of paying some lackey to do it.
Our
Nuts Are Bigger!!
From
Undeniable Liberal for Undeniable
Liberalism
In a bold,
diplomatic move
to ensure that
Israel remains
the dominant
nookuleer power
in the middle
east, US
Demands Israelis
Stop Eating
Iranian Muslim
Pistachios.
This is just nuts."As a proud native of the golden state (California), I think Israelis should eat American nuts, not Iranian ones," said Stewart Tuttle, spokesliar for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.
Chickenhawks
Drooling Over
War With Iran
From
Tom Harper for Who
Hijacked Our
Country
Here
is another
sheltered
keyboard
potato
who's
willing to
fight Iran
to the
last drop
of
somebody
else’s
blood.
Where do
these
pitiful
douchebags
keep
coming
from and
why do
they keep
multiplying?
Joshua Muravchik is a member of the American Enterprise Institute and has been affiliated with the Project For a New American Century (PNAC). He has also “been associated with a string of hawkish pressure groups supporting George W. Bush’s interventionist policies in the Middle East” according to this article.
In other words, here is somebody who's led a gritty hardscrabble life and would have a deep empathy with the hardships suffered by our soldiers and veterans. And you can tell he's very sensitive to the grief and despair suffered by the Iranian victims of our bombing. Asshole.
He says “I’m
just a
pathetic
sissy but
I love to
watch men
fight.
Oooooh,
it’s
such a
turn-on
Our choice
is stark.
Accept
Iran with
an atom
bomb or
cripple
its
nuclear
program by
force.”
He also boasts that airstrikes against Iran “would not require a ‘declaration of war,’ an antiquated concept that has not been employed since World War II.” Ah yes, another one of those antiquated concepts, along with the Constitution and the Geneva Convention.
Contact your recruiter, Dickhead.
Bush
will
take
on
the
entire
world
for
God!
I have to laugh! A return to the cold war is always discussed but There was a quick return to the cold war long ago. It has just become noticed because the world is sick of Bush's warmongering and openly ramping up to fight him. I have to laugh! The MDS (missile defense system) may or may not work but as I have said numerous times, It has already worked for Bush and provided the impetus for the world to gather together so he can fight them and get the excuse to stay in power to fight for the hell on earth he is creating for God. Yes not only is Russia and China along with the 135 non aligned Nations and most of the world openly helping Iran obtain their nuclear ambitions but they are supplying them the hardware to defend themselves often times with the manpower to man the complicated military equipment. It was at least 6 months ago now but Putin for one has given the Russian paramilitary orders to defend their Iranian interests against us if or should I say when Bush attacks. As I wrote, as the world abandons us Bush is daily tightening the noose around us as you know to enable him to take total control and prosecute his Forever War with only Israel if he has to. He will not stop!
I have to laugh! This all sounds like a Bush style set up to steal power. Isn't it too much to be coincidence that Musharraf allowed Bhutto home then put her under house arrest where he could control her? Now he has allowed Sharif back and I expect the same thing. He arrest Bhutto supporters and he is now arresting Sharif supporters but I fully expect this to erupt to where Bush has the excuse to intervene and look forced to do so though support for and interference by Bush is the reason for this break down too.
In the middle east his breakdown progresses and despite everything because of his interference will only get mush worse until it to blows wide open. BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Just hours before President Emile Lahoud was scheduled to leave office, an opposition boycott has kept Lebanon's parliament from choosing his successor.
The Syrian- and Iranian-backed opposition has suggested it might form a rival government against that backed by Western interests. Failure to settle on a candidate could lead to a power vacuum -- or worse. The army and other security forces were on full alert as the nation braced itself for possible violence. There will be no peace here as In the past two years, four members of the Lebanese parliament have been assassinated. Iran and Syria will see to it that there is no peace unless it is on there terms. Political deadlock in Lebanon.
Anyway knowing One of Lahoud's last acts as president was to order the army to maintain security. "There are conditions and risks on the ground that could lead to a state of emergency over all Lebanese territory as of the 24th of November 2007," said presidential spokesman Rafiq Shalala. "Therefore, the president has entrusted the Lebanese army with security." He said Lahoud is not declaring a state of emergency but calling on the army to maintain order.
Lahoud's decision to hand security to the military leaves in place, for the time being, the government of Western-backed Prime Minister Faoud Sinioria. The outgoing president took a swipe at that government, saying it is "illegitimate and unconstitutional -- and they know it. Even if Bush, America and the entire world said that it is a legitimate government, it is still illegitimate, and they know it. Lebanon President steps down leaves army in charge
Isn't that martial order leaving no President and telling the Army to maintain security.? I have to agree with Lahoud and Iran and Syria will ensure that Bush's interference fails here too.
Bush has left virtually no middle east country unscathed and despite the upcoming conference the entire middle east will fail. President Bush, who has avoided playing much of a role in the Middle East peace process, is now gambling that the time is right for progress in the troubled region. But the risks are high, and the odds for success seem long. The planned three-day conference in Annapolis, Md., and Washington this week comes with just 14 months left in Bush's term and his legacy tarnished by the war in Iraq.
Pushing for an Israeli-Palestinian peace has preoccupied more than one U.S. president. President Clinton made it a top agenda item in the closing days of his presidency. But with the notable exception of President Carter, whose Camp David sessions in 1978 led to a peace treaty the following year between Israel and Egypt, presidential Mideast peacemaking has fizzled.
The stakes for the session increased Friday when Saudi Arabia and other Arab states agreed to attend the conference. Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians had already accepted the U.S. invitations. The stakes are high but read it this will fail too.
Beau
Brummels -
Just a
Little
The Beau Brummels--imitating a Beatles photo session in this picture--were from San Francisco, and it has been said that they contributed to the San Francisco sound.
But you would have to analyze the San Francisco sound to know that. The Beau Brummels sounded more like a cross between the British invasion and American folk artists like the Kingston Trio, etc.
"Just A Little" is their biggest hit.
Joshua Muravchik is a member of the American Enterprise Institute and has been affiliated with the Project For a New American Century (PNAC). He has also “been associated with a string of hawkish pressure groups supporting George W. Bush’s interventionist policies in the Middle East” according to this article.
In other words, here is somebody who's led a gritty hardscrabble life and would have a deep empathy with the hardships suffered by our soldiers and veterans. And you can tell he's very sensitive to the grief and despair suffered by the Iranian victims of our bombing. Asshole.
He says “
He also boasts that airstrikes against Iran “would not require a ‘declaration of war,’ an antiquated concept that has not been employed since World War II.” Ah yes, another one of those antiquated concepts, along with the Constitution and the Geneva Convention.
Contact your recruiter, Dickhead.
Today
the latest
on what we
will be
facing
around the
world
virtually
alone as
Bush takes
total
control or
us to
fight his
wars!
From
James
Joiner for
An
Average
American
Patriot
Bush
will
take
on
the
entire
world
for
God!
First
I
have
to
say
I
am
peeved
because
this
timely
writers
strike
is
just
too
coincidental.
I
was
just
listening
to
all
the
Democrats
saying
they
would
not
cross
the
line
and
talk
Politics.
It
really
bothers
me
because
with
Bush
having
passed
a
law
to
go
after
those
that
hamper
his
war
mongering
and
finding
out
that
the
Treason
of
Plamegate
came
right
from
Bush,
now
is
the
friggen
time
to
speak
up!
I
was
just
listening
to
all
the
Democrats
saying
they
would
not
cross
the
line
and
talk
Politics.
It
really
bothers
me
because
with
Bush
having
passed
a
law
to
go
after
those
that
hamper
his
war
mongering
and
finding
out
that
the
Treason
of
Plamegate
came
right
from
Bush,
now
is
the
friggen
time
to
speak
up!
Now,
Yesterday
we
discussed
the
worlds
leaders
abandoning
us
as
Bush
continues
to
clamp
down
on
those
that
disagree
with
his
warmongering!
Today
the
latest
on
what
we
will
be
facing
around
the
world
virtually
alone!
I
was
perusing
the
news
around
the
world
this
morning
so
I
could
relate
the
latest
in
what
is
happening
around
the
world
in
this
Bush
created
unstoppable
world
Break
down!
we
are
increasingly
alone
with
Israel
and
it
only
pleases
Bush
more
as
he
thinks
he
is
doing
Gods
work
and
this
will
only
gain
him
favor.
Anyway
yesterday
at
the
end
of
the
day
I
said
I
hate
to
tell
everyone
but
we
already
have
a
dictatorship,
it
is
already
here.
Bush
like
everything
else
he
is
doing
underhandedly
is
merely
trying
to
invoke
the
word
Democracy
to
hide
his
true
meaning
and
mask
what
he
is
really
doing
which
is
to
have
total
control
while
he
works
for
God
and
prepares
this
hell
on
earth
he
is
creating
for
him
right
here.
I have to laugh! A return to the cold war is always discussed but There was a quick return to the cold war long ago. It has just become noticed because the world is sick of Bush's warmongering and openly ramping up to fight him. I have to laugh! The MDS (missile defense system) may or may not work but as I have said numerous times, It has already worked for Bush and provided the impetus for the world to gather together so he can fight them and get the excuse to stay in power to fight for the hell on earth he is creating for God. Yes not only is Russia and China along with the 135 non aligned Nations and most of the world openly helping Iran obtain their nuclear ambitions but they are supplying them the hardware to defend themselves often times with the manpower to man the complicated military equipment. It was at least 6 months ago now but Putin for one has given the Russian paramilitary orders to defend their Iranian interests against us if or should I say when Bush attacks. As I wrote, as the world abandons us Bush is daily tightening the noose around us as you know to enable him to take total control and prosecute his Forever War with only Israel if he has to. He will not stop!
The
latest
developments
in
Bush's
failure
in
the
middle
east
that
will
give
him
the
excuse
to
ramp
up
his
World
War
three!
They
are
many.
Former
Pakistani
Prime
Minister
Nawaz
Sharif
will
try
to
return
to
Pakistan
on
Sunday,
his
second
attempt
since
September.
Sharif,
leader
of
the
opposition
party
Pakistan
Muslim
League,
has
been
in
exile
in
Saudi
Arabia.
He
was
convicted
of
tax
evasion
and
treason
after
being
ousted
but
was
released
in
2000
in
exchange
for
agreeing
to
10
years
of
exile
in
Saudi
Arabia.
Was
it
a
fabricated
charge?
Sharif
retained
his
Pakistani
citizenship
but
has
not
been
allowed
to
travel
to
Pakistan
or
directly
take
part
in
Pakistani
politics.
His
return
comes
a
month
after
his
predecessor
and
another
opposition
leader
Benazir
Bhutto
returned
to
Pakistan,
herself
from
exile.
The
developments
came
amid
a
state
of
emergency
declared
on
November
3
by
Musharraf,
whose
office
at
army
headquarters
where
he
serves
as
military
chief
is
in
Rawalpindi.
He
has
called
the
measure
necessary
to
counter
rising
tensions
and
terrorism.
His
opponents,
however,
say
he
used
the
measure
to
suspend
the
constitution,
fire
the
country's
Supreme
Court
justices
and
solidify
power.
Sharif
just
arrived
lets
see
what
happens
I have to laugh! This all sounds like a Bush style set up to steal power. Isn't it too much to be coincidence that Musharraf allowed Bhutto home then put her under house arrest where he could control her? Now he has allowed Sharif back and I expect the same thing. He arrest Bhutto supporters and he is now arresting Sharif supporters but I fully expect this to erupt to where Bush has the excuse to intervene and look forced to do so though support for and interference by Bush is the reason for this break down too.
In the middle east his breakdown progresses and despite everything because of his interference will only get mush worse until it to blows wide open. BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Just hours before President Emile Lahoud was scheduled to leave office, an opposition boycott has kept Lebanon's parliament from choosing his successor.
The Syrian- and Iranian-backed opposition has suggested it might form a rival government against that backed by Western interests. Failure to settle on a candidate could lead to a power vacuum -- or worse. The army and other security forces were on full alert as the nation braced itself for possible violence. There will be no peace here as In the past two years, four members of the Lebanese parliament have been assassinated. Iran and Syria will see to it that there is no peace unless it is on there terms. Political deadlock in Lebanon.
Anyway knowing One of Lahoud's last acts as president was to order the army to maintain security. "There are conditions and risks on the ground that could lead to a state of emergency over all Lebanese territory as of the 24th of November 2007," said presidential spokesman Rafiq Shalala. "Therefore, the president has entrusted the Lebanese army with security." He said Lahoud is not declaring a state of emergency but calling on the army to maintain order.
Lahoud's decision to hand security to the military leaves in place, for the time being, the government of Western-backed Prime Minister Faoud Sinioria. The outgoing president took a swipe at that government, saying it is "illegitimate and unconstitutional -- and they know it. Even if Bush, America and the entire world said that it is a legitimate government, it is still illegitimate, and they know it. Lebanon President steps down leaves army in charge
Isn't that martial order leaving no President and telling the Army to maintain security.? I have to agree with Lahoud and Iran and Syria will ensure that Bush's interference fails here too.
Bush has left virtually no middle east country unscathed and despite the upcoming conference the entire middle east will fail. President Bush, who has avoided playing much of a role in the Middle East peace process, is now gambling that the time is right for progress in the troubled region. But the risks are high, and the odds for success seem long. The planned three-day conference in Annapolis, Md., and Washington this week comes with just 14 months left in Bush's term and his legacy tarnished by the war in Iraq.
Pushing for an Israeli-Palestinian peace has preoccupied more than one U.S. president. President Clinton made it a top agenda item in the closing days of his presidency. But with the notable exception of President Carter, whose Camp David sessions in 1978 led to a peace treaty the following year between Israel and Egypt, presidential Mideast peacemaking has fizzled.
The stakes for the session increased Friday when Saudi Arabia and other Arab states agreed to attend the conference. Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians had already accepted the U.S. invitations. The stakes are high but read it this will fail too.
Thanks to Bush and his interference in the middle east this will fail like everything he touches and the entire middle east will breakdown into chaos. When it does the rest of the world will get involved and Bush's world war three will get underway and all our concern will not stop the world breakdown Bush started.
Bush's
Youth
Guard
From
Polishifter
for Pissed
on
Politics
His last defense perhaps?
I've seen this before in some other country...
Military training program for teens expands in US
Dozens of teens dressed in uniforms provided by the US Marines stand at attention in the gym of a Chicago public high school as a drill sergeant goes through a list of the day's do's and don'ts.
Bring your books to class. Come for extra help if you need it. And wear your uniform with pride.
"Young men, you think you can get a haircut and say I'm done for two or three weeks. WRONG," Sgt. Major Thomas Smith Jr. intones.
"Young ladies. There's been no problem with your uniforms but there is a problem with your ties. Again, I will go through it again. Wear your ties when you come to my class."
One in 10 public high school students in Chicago wears a military uniform to school and takes classes -- including how to shoot a gun properly -- from retired veterans.
That
number is
expected
to rise as
junior
military
reserve
programs
expand
across the
country
now that a
congressional
cap of
3,500
units has
been
lifted
from the
nearly
century-old
scheme.
#
"To call these young people child soldiers might be technically inaccurate, but it does reveal the truth of it," said Oscar Castro, a spokesman for the National Youth and Militarism Program, an advocacy group.
Welcome to the War Culture and War Time Economy. We will be at war for at least the next 50 years or until the U.S. crumbles...which ever comes first. We must keep the people in a patriotic war time spirit. There's no better way than to instill military lust in them at a young age. Make them bow and respect to authority. Do not question your dear leaders. Those that question are traitors.
Not enough troops? Send this year's graduating Seniors to Iraq. They are more than happy to fight for Der Bush. They were only 11 when 9/11 happened. All they know is the U.S. being at war with terrorists who are going to come and kill us unless we go fight them over there. They have no problem giving up their freedom for security. They don't mind the government having all their information - they gladly post it all on Myspace and Facebook for easy access.
Perfect Soldiers.
Beau
Brummels -
Just a
Little
From
Hector
Diego for The
Walrus
Speaks
The Beau Brummels--imitating a Beatles photo session in this picture--were from San Francisco, and it has been said that they contributed to the San Francisco sound.
But you would have to analyze the San Francisco sound to know that. The Beau Brummels sounded more like a cross between the British invasion and American folk artists like the Kingston Trio, etc.
"Just A Little" is their biggest hit.
James
Madison on
Preserving
Liberty
During
Time of
War
From
Ron Chusid
for Liberal
Values
Andrew
Sullivan
posted
several
quotations
from
James
Madison
which
are
particular
relevant
in
light
of
the
“war
on
terror”
which
the
Republicans
would
turn
into
a
perpetual
state
of
warfare
and
use
as
rational
to
reduce
liberty:
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
“It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.”
“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
“The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.”
“War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.”
“Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations.”
Wal-Mart Sues Brain Damaged Employee As Reward for Giving Her Health Insurance
From Sue J for Nailing Jello to the Wall
Reposted from Mother Jones' MoJoBlog. I don't even know what to say about this. It has left me speechless — I'll just let the post's author Stephanie Mencimer say it all:
Just when you think that Wal-Mart had already exhausted every last possible strategy for screwing over its employees, here comes this story in the Wall Street Journal. Deborah Shank, a Wal-Mart employee gets into an accident with a semi and ends up permanently brain-damaged a few years back. Her Wal-Mart health insurance paid her medical bills, but she also sued the trucking company for damages. She wins $700,000, which after legal fees and expenses, nets her about $400,000, which was put in a trust to pay the nursing home she now lives in.
But Wal-Mart gets wind of the settlement and turns around and sues Shank for $470,000, the money its insurance company paid for her care from the accident. Now, the woman is reliant on Medicaid and Social Security and Wal-Mart apparently got a much needed windfall.
Wal-Mart isn't alone in such behavior. Insurance companies seizing lawsuit winnings from catastrophically injured Americans is a common practice that gives lie to the notion that anyone gets rich off a personal injury lawsuit these days, as insurance companies often get first dibs on any judgment or settlement in such cases. But Wal-Mart's cruelty, as always, is extreme in this case. Not only is Shenk profoundly disabled, but while her family was fighting off the company in court, her son was killed while fighting the war in Iraq. Not even bad PR like this, apparently, can eke out a drop of compassion from the retail giant.
